ML interview by RN

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think this has shown up on pen-l yet. It's very good. I
especially like the word "protagonistic."



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Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:43:52 -0400
To: Asfilho@xxxxxxx, "Al Campbell" <AL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>
Subject: interview with radical notes

"Build it Now": An Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz
Wednesday, 28 February 2007


Radical Notes


Michael Lebowitz's Build it Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First
Century is not just another book about the specificities of the
Bolivarian Revolution. Like the Communist Manifesto, its purpose is to
identify the participants in the ongoing class struggle - the
fundamental struggle between the needs of capital and the needs of
human beings - underlying contemporary capitalism and its crisis,
exposing the contours of their practices. It refreshes the classical
Marxist notion of a continuous and uninterrupted revolution of radical
needs as practice of the working class, as its struggle for
self-emancipation.

We all know that the mechanical dualisation of "objective conditions"
and "subjective intervention" (taken as reactive and external) has
always come handy in justifying the social democratic deferral of
revolutionary tasks. Build it Now disarms the ideology of such
deferral, by stressing "the need for activity, the need to struggle
for [socialism] now". But, then it also attacks the voluntarist
tendencies of speculating recipes for the society of the future, as
"socialism doesn't drop from the sky". Lebowitz finds both these
ideological tendencies as reflections of a period of disappointment
and defeat.

The beauty of Build it Now lies in presenting this dialectical
critique as articulated within the contemporary practice of the
working class - in the demolition and building of institutions and
their discourses that impede and facilitate this practice. Definitely,
Latin America, especially Venezuela, is the centre where this
revolutionary class practice is present in its clearest form. However,
the Venezuelan context simply shows,
There is an alternative. And it can be struggled for in every country.
We can try to build that socialism now... So, today, let us say, "Two,
Three, Many Bolivarian Revolutions!""


Build it Now has several implications for left practice throughout the
globe, and the following discussion with Prof Lebowitz is an attempt
to bring out a few such lessons relevant for our struggle.

Radical Notes (RN): You have been writing lately about the Bolivarian
Revolution in Venezuela. Are there essential aspects of the Bolivarian
model of a "democratic, participatory and protagonistic" society that
would ensure a progress towards socialism for the 21st Century?
Further, there are left intellectuals and leaders who assert that the
Bolivarian revolution has been successful mainly due to the Venezuelan
oil revenue, and since others do not have that advantage, its
experiences cannot be emulated elsewhere. How far do you think this
allegation/explanation is valid?

Lebowitz: At the core of the process that we can see in Venezuela are
two essential elements: (a) the focus upon the full development of
human potential as the goal and (b) the explicit recognition that the
necessary condition for this human development is participation as
subjects - i.e., revolutionary practice, the simultaneous changing of
circumstances and human activity and self-change. This combination of
vision and necessary practice is present in the Bolivarian
Constitution with its emphasis upon overall human development and upon
local planning and self-management and other forms of economic
activity 'guided by the values of mutual cooperation and solidarity.'
That combination is being realized at this very point, too - the
creation of the new communal councils, where people in their
neighbourhoods are beginning to direct activity toward the
satisfaction of communal needs, and the new emphasis upon the
development of workers councils demonstrate the definite deepening of
this process.

However, nothing ensures progress towards socialism but struggle.
Insofar, then that the path the Bolivarian Revolution is taking is one
of mobilising and developing the capacities of masses, the potential
to win that battle is increased. Certainly, having oil revenue makes
it possible to attempt to deal with Venezuela's enormous social debt
quickly. But, I suggest that intellectuals and leaders who focus upon
this unique characteristic are just looking for excuses to do nothing
(or, more accurately, to follow the capitalist path). As I argued in
Build it Now, 'most of what stands out about the Bolivarian Revolution
has little specifically to do with Venezuela. The struggle for human
development, radical needs, the centrality of protagonistic democracy
(within the workplace and the community), the understanding that
people are transformed as they struggle for justice and dignity, that
democracy is practice, that socialism and protagonistic democracy are
one - these are the characteristics of a new humanist socialism, a
socialism for the twenty-first century everywhere' (118).

RN: A central theme in Build it Now is to reclaim a socialist vision
based on human needs, or as Marx would say, "the worker's own need for
development". In your work, we find this conception to be based on a
critique of socialist practice that prioritised the task of removing
the fetters in the development of means of production or technology.
Thus, perhaps, it rejects the whole logic of "catching up" with
capitalism that dominated the developmental discourse in the erstwhile
'socialist' countries. In your socialist vision the notion of
development loses its neutrality and is redefined in terms of class
struggle - as a struggle between the needs of capital vs. the needs of
human beings (or collective worker!).

Lebowitz: For me, everything loses its neutrality.  In my book, Beyond
Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, I argued that
because Marx did not proceed to write the volume on Wage-Labour,
Marxists have tended to forget about the side of workers, about
workers as subjects struggling for their needs. They have mistaken
Marx's look at the side of capital for a study of capitalism as a
whole. Once you focus upon this second side, the side in opposition to
capital, it becomes clear that in order for capital to succeed in
achieving its goals, it must defeat workers. Capital must divide and
separate workers in order to defeat them.  Everything capital does, in
fact, is permeated by its need to divide and separate workers. (I
develop this point further in the Deutscher Prize Lecture, 'The
Politics of Assumption, the Assumption of Politics', later published
in Historical Materialism, 14(2):29-47, 2006)  How then could we ever
think of technology or the means of production - and, indeed, any
investment decision by capital - as neutral? The means of production
and technology that capital introduces in the context of class
struggle necessarily embody capital's needs.  So yes, in this respect,
the notion of development loses its neutrality.

In contrast to the productive forces introduced by capital, the
productive forces introduced by a society oriented toward satisfying
the needs of workers, satisfying in particular 'the worker's own need
for development,' are those which permit the full development of all
the capacities and potential of human beings.  No one could say that
the kind of technology that capital introduces permits this.  So in
this respect, my emphasis definitely is upon the character of
productive relations and how particular productive relations shape the
nature of productive forces. The issue, then, is not one of catching
up with capitalism.  Rather, it is one of creating a new path.

RN: In your work, you have also redefined the concept of endogenous
development, where you seem to move away from its general
conceptualisation as import-substitution efforts, welfarism and
investment in "human capital"; you seem to stress more on whether or
not the exploited and oppressed classes are subjects or protagonists
of such development. You define endogenous development as "the real
development of human potential which occurs as the result of human
activity", as "the transformation of people through their own
activity, the building of human capacities". Can you elaborate on this
theme?

Lebowitz: When you start from the idea that our real goal is the
development of all human potential, the development of rich human
beings (the spectre that haunts Marx's Capital and indeed is the
premise for that work), you recognize the inadequacy of a definition
of development which focuses upon specific sectors of the economy or,
even upon investments by a state in inputs for what some people call
human capital.  Rather, when you start from the focus upon human
development and you understand (as Marx did) that real human
development is the product of human activity, then you recognize that
real endogenous development is the development of human productive
forces.

Of course, characteristic of the Venezuelan focus upon endogenous
development is also the desire to produce things that have been
imported previously.  Both agriculture and domestic industry in
Venezuela have been stunted by the ability to import these products
cheaply because of oil revenues; the result has been a warped economy
- one in which, despite having rich agricultural land, Venezuela
imports 70% of its food. Now, some would say this is just a case of
comparative advantage - that this specialization and exchange is
economic efficiency. This is a prime example of the idiocy of
neoclassical economics - a theory whose concept of efficiency does not
take into account the effect upon human beings because it is an
economics of capital and not of human beings. That masses of people
are unemployed or in the reserve army that we politely call the
informal sector, that they have little access to education or health
facilities - these seem to be matters of minor concern; those who
rationalize these effects of the market are simply the hired
prize-fighters of neoliberalism. Venezuela's particular concept of
endogenous development, then, is the attempt to do two things
simultaneously - transform circumstances and transform the capacities
of the human subjects. It is what I called 'radical endogenous
development', radical because it goes to the root which is human
beings.

Through the encouragement of cooperatives and new state sectors
organized on the basis of worker protagonism, Venezuela is attempting
to build not only material productive forces but new human productive
forces; it is attempting to unleash the potential of the masses. But,
let me stress that this is not my concept of endogenous development.
It is the Bolivarian concept. I have learned from this. And, we all
should.

RN: Do you think the three tenures of President Chavez can be divided
into phases of socialist construction? If yes, what are they?

Lebowitz: There is definitely a revolutionary process occurring in
Venezuela, a very uneven one which is propelled by struggle. It is a
process of struggle in which every advance can be reversed. I think
that is the most important thing to understand.

Even if specific, discrete phases of socialist construction in
Venezuela could be identified, I'm not certain about the utility of
doing so. I really think we need to break away from schematic, stagist
thinking. I am constantly amazed by the extent to which people think
they can judge the Venezuelan process with the help of schema based
upon the singular experience of the Soviet Union. The last thing we
need to do now is create a new schema based upon the Venezuelan
process. As I argued in 'Socialism Doesn't Drop from the Sky'
(published in Build it Now), we all start the process of socialist
construction from different places and, given our own particular
histories and circumstances, 'we would be pedantic fools if we
insisted that there is only one way to start the social revolution.' I
went on to say, though, that 'one step in every particular path is
critical - control and transformation of the state.'

RN: John Holloway asserts that in the last century the
revolutionaries' stress on state power was essentially based on a
false understanding of state as a mere instrument rather than as
embedded "in the web of capitalist social relations". In your critique
of Holloway's notion of "changing the world without taking power", you
seem to reaffirm the "orthodox" Marxist stress on the role of state
power in the revolutionary process. But you have ruthlessly criticized
statism, populism and totalitarianism too. So can you tell us briefly
about the role of state power in the process of socialist
construction, which, as we understand, is essentially a process of
humanity's "self-change"? How can "the sovereign people" transform
themselves into "the object and the subject of power"? What can we
learn from the Bolivarian experience in this regard?

Lebowitz: What Holloway had to say is not as interesting as the
reception for a book which begins by saying we don't know how to
change the world without taking power and, almost 200 pages later,
ends by saying the same thing. In both an extended on-line exchange
with Holloway and my article about his book ('Holloway's Scream: Full
of Sound and Fury', Historical Materialism, 13(4):217-231, 2005) I
argued that his position and the reception of his book reflect a
period of defeat and demoralization. I see it as an example of the
'morbid symptoms' that appear when the new cannot yet be born.

In the exchange itself, I proposed that to be consistent he either had
to repudiate his argument that the state is the 'assassin of hope' or
attack the Bolivarian Revolution because it was spreading 'the notion
that society can be changed through the winning of state power.' I
find so much strange in the argument he presents in his book. How does
Holloway deal with the power of the capitalist state (police, courts,
armies)? As I demonstrate, he abandons Marxism for pure idealism by
dissolving the power of the capitalist state through the power of
logic. Of course, if you start from Holloway's premise that capitalism
is fragile and that we can huff and puff and blow it down by shouting
our 'No's', then I suppose it is consistent to say that you don't need
organization and you don't need the power of the state.

So, it is definitely correct to describe my position on the role of
the state in socialist transformation as traditional Marxism. I argue
in both Beyond Capital and Build it Now that using political supremacy
to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie remains as
critical now as when Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto.
Where my position may be less familiar, though, is in my insistence
that for working people to be the subjects of power who can transform
society, you need a state which provides the space for revolutionary
practice, the development of the capacities of people through their
activity. However, this is simply a return to Marx from the crude
historical materialism that Marx rejected: the focus upon
transformative practice is precisely why Marx embraced the Paris
Commune model as the political form 'at last discovered' under which
to work out the economical emancipation of labour.

Again, once you start from the emphasis upon human development and the
recognition of the centrality of revolutionary practice, then it is
self-evident that you must reject a hierarchical state, populism and
totalitarianism. As I said in Beyond Capital,  'the form and the
content of the workers' state are inseparable. Only insofar as the
state is converted "from an organ standing above society into one
completely subordinate to it" can the working class "succeed in
ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found
society anew".'

How do you create such a state? I think there is no magic formula. The
process will differ everywhere. In Venezuela, the impulse for the
development of the communal councils as the basis for a new state has
come largely from Chavez and, given the horror of the existing state,
people have responded with enthusiasm. But, I'm sure there will be
many paths to this point. What is important is knowing where you want
(indeed, need) to go; the particular paths to that point will depend
upon where you start in any particular society.

RN: In a situation of an unevenness of capitalist development
throughout the globe, we find that for a large section of established
"third world" left forces, the issue still remains that of greater
industrialization and overcoming underdevelopment, which for them
essentially signifies an insufficiency of national capitalist
development. They also justify their reformist politics and
compromises with neoliberal forces by invoking a kind of TINA
rationale - the twin dangers of aggressive globalisation and the
ever-looming possibility of capital strike. Do you think your critique
of social democracy can also be directed against this tendency within
the "third world" left?

Lebowitz: Within the Third World left, some groups which call
themselves communist or Marxist (as in China these days) have reduced
this only to a particular conception of the party - its internal
practices and discipline and the view that the party is the instructor
of masses and social movements.  They continue to talk about socialism
but in practice, as in the case of Social Democratic parties, they see
no alternative to capital; that is, they accept the logic of capital.
Thus, we see them evoking various forms of the discredited stagist
theory that insists that now (as always) is the time for capital to
develop the productive forces - thereby demonstrating once again that
history repeats itself as tragedy.

As I noted in Build it Now, the failure of social democracy in
developed capitalist countries to break ideologically and politically
with capital has meant that, despite all the ideals it expressed
historically about building a better world, social democracy has
enforced the logic of capital. The same is true of those elements of
the left in the South which are relying upon capital to develop
productive forces.

What can be done about that? I think there are real limits to spending
one's time attacking social democracy in all its forms theoretically
and polemically. Many good working people are committed to these
parties and tendencies because of their past struggles and
achievements and, thus, are defensive in the face of such attacks.
Rather, criticism in practice by the development of organization from
below both develops the capacities of people as subjects and exposes
the limitations of those who refuse to break with the logic of
capital. To paraphrase Fidel, we do not exclude these parties; they
exclude themselves.


(Build it Now: Socialism in the Twenty-First Century - Monthly Review
/ Amazon. In South Asia, contact: Daanish Books, A-901, Taj
Apartments, Gazipur, Delhi-110 096, Tel: 011-5578 5559, 2223 0812,
Cell: +91-98685 43637, E-Mail: daanishbooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx email
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[it would be a perfect St. Pat's day gift!!]
--
Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright